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Title:
Redwork Quilt
Artist(s): Betty Quarton Hoard and Winnie Quarton
Dimensions: 72" x 85"
Date Made: ca. 1929
Place Created: Birmingham, Michigan
Collection: Great Lakes Quilt Center/Michigan State University Museum, #2006:142.1,
Durkee-Blakeslee-Quarton-Hoard Family Collection
Photo Credit: Pearl Yee Wong
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The Durkee-Blakeslee-Quarton-Hoard Collection consists of quilts representing four generations of women from Oakland County, Michigan. Concern that family pets might damage a collection of pristine family quilts prompted Betty Quarton Hoard to donate seventeen quilts made by her grandmother, Martha L. Durkee Blakeslee, great-grandmother, Mary Elizabeth Beardslee Durkee, and mother, Emma Blakeslee Quarton, to the Michigan State University Museum. Following Betty's death in 2005, her family donated an additional three quilts, including this quilt made by Betty and her sister Winnie.
Oakland County, Michigan has been home to members of the family, since 1823 when Betty's forebear Wilkes Durkee moved from Cayuga County, New York to the town of Franklin. Betty's grandfather, Frank Blakeslee, owned a dry goods store in Birmingham, the city in which resided. Betty recalled that the boxes of fabric, lace, and other notions that were available from the family's store always provided her with scraps from which to make doll clothes. Ownership of the store undoubtedly contributed to the eclectic variety of fabric found throughout the family's quilts.
Betty's own quilting began with this detailed Redwork piece created with her sister, Winnie. The project commenced when Betty was about fourteen, an age she thought was too old for this task and thus she only completed around four of the blocks. Winnie finished the remainder. The motifs embroidered on blocks set with a red sashing include numerous depictions of nursery rhymes and fairy tales.
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